He knelt there, in a puddle, leaning on the cold grip of Kanedias' sword, its point dug into the stone walkway. He bent over and breathed hard, his cold gut sucking in and out, his raw mouth salty, his nose full of the stink of blood. He hardly dared to look up. He clenched his teeth, and closed his eyes, and hawked sour spit up onto the stones. He forced that cold feeling in his stomach down and it slunk away, for now, at least, and left him with only pain and weariness to worry about.

'Looks like those bastards had enough,' came Crummock's laughing voice from out of the drizzle. The hillman tipped his head back, mouth open, stuck his tongue out into the rain, then licked his lips. 'That was some good work you put in today, Bloody-Nine. Not that it ain't my special pleasure to watch you at it, but I'm glad to get my share.' He hefted his great long hammer up in one hand and spun it round as if it was a willow switch, peering at a great bloody stain on the head with a clump of hair stuck to it, then grinning wide.

Logen looked up at him, hardly enough strength left to lift his head. 'Oh aye. Good work. We'll go at the back tomorrow though, eh, since you're that keen? You can take the fucking wall.'

The rain was slacking, down to a thin spit and drizzle. A glimmer of fading sunlight broke through the sagging clouds, bringing Bethod's camp back into view, his muddy ditch and his standards, tents scattered across the valley. Dogman squinted, thought he could see a few men stood around the front watching the Easterners run back, a glint of sunlight on something. An eye-glass maybe, like the Union used, usually to look the wrong way. Dogman wondered if it was Bethod down there, watching it all happen. It would be just like Bethod to have got himself an eye-glass.

He felt a big hand clap him on the shoulder. 'We gave 'em a slap, chief,' rumbled Tul, 'and a good 'un!'

There was small doubt o' that. There were a lot of dead Easterners scattered in the mud round the base of that wall, a lot of wounded carried by their mates, or dragging themselves slow and painful back towards their lines. But there were a fair few killed on their side of the wall as well. Dogman could see a stack of muddy corpses over near the back of the fortress where they were doing the burying. He could hear someone screaming. Hard and nasty screams, the kind a man makes when he needs a limb taken off, or he's had one off already.

'We gave 'em a slap, aye,' Dogman muttered, 'but they gave us one as well. I'm not sure how many slaps we'll stand.' The barrels that carried their arrows were no more'n half full now, the rocks close to run out. 'Best send some boys to pick over the dead!' he shouted to the men over his shoulder. 'Get what we can while we can!'